The deadline to submit List 3 exclusion requests officially closed on September 30th. While some exclusion requests have already been granted, the majority of submitters must now wait for the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to review their requests. As each request is reviewed, they must progress through four separate stages in order to receive approval. Stage 1 is a public comment period where interested parties have the opportunity to support or oppose a filed exclusion request. This period remains open for 14 days after the request is posted on the exclusion portal (and 7 additional days if a response is submitted). Stage 2 is an initial substantive review by the USTR of whether the exclusion should be granted based on the criteria set out in the Product Exclusion Notice (FR 84 29576). Stage 3 is an additional review by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to determine whether the exclusion would be administrable. If an exclusion progresses to Stage 4, the exclusion has been granted and submitted for publication in the Federal Register.
Because the USTR has been accepting exclusions since June 30th, the status of each filed exclusion request is different. Here are some of the key statistics directly from the exclusion portal as of October 2nd:
- In total, 30,326 List 3 exclusion requests were submitted. The total requests filed for List 1 was 10,828 and for List 2 was 2,920.
- 378 exclusion requests have been denied for List 3
- exclusion requests have been granted for List 3. So far, this would indicate the USTR has approved List 3 exclusion requests at approximately a 16% success rate.
- There have been successful exclusions within the following Chapters: 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 54, 55, 56, 59, 73, 76, 83, 84, 85, 87, 89, and 94.
- 15,420 requests are in Stage 1. (51.6% of total pending requests)
- 14,467 requests are in Stage 2 (48.4% of total pending requests)
- 0 requests are in Stage 3
Exclusion approvals for List 1 and 2 took approximately 3-6 months for the USTR to review. So far, approvals for List 3 have averaged 3-4 months. Therefore, it is important to continuously monitor your own exclusion requests, and also similarly filed ones. Remember, if another company’s exclusion is approved for a product that shares similar characteristics/attributes and HTS code, you should consider whether to take advantage of it as well.
For any additional inquiries, please contact Brandon French at brandon@braumillerlaw.com.
